by James Axler
"Gate," Jak said, pointing.
Moving incredibly fast, Ryan fired the SIG-Sauer twice, the silenced weapon coughing gently. There was a stirring in the bushes, and two men dressed in mottled green dropped their flintlock longblasters and fell to the ground, both of them bleeding from the throat.
Spreading out, the companions did a quick recce of the area and found no more hidden guards. Dismounting, they checked the fallen guards and found one of them still breathing, the blood bubbling from the ghastly wound in his neck. Ryan cut the man's throat with a smooth stroke of the panga, the blade curving along the neck as if designed specifically for that function.
On closer inspection, the wall of bamboo was false, the tubular plants resting on some old splintery wood with a central pivot buried in the soil. Ryan pushed on one side, and the other swung outward. Ryan took the point and went inside first. To the left was a corral of horses, to the right a bubbling spring of naturally carbonated water. He whistled like a mountain lark, and the others came through the gate, weapons in hand.
Tethering their mounts on the outside of the corral in case they needed to leave quickly, they fell into line, Ryan on point, Doc in the middle, J.B. at the rear. A wide path led through the bamboo grove, and Ryan found two more hidden guards. The first was a massive hound. It wasted its only chance to give a warning by growling at the companions. Ryan aced the dog nice and quiet, the SIG-Sauer delivering a 9 mm round directly into its left eye. The other guard was a man who burst from cover to throw a spear. Ryan dodged the spear, but his slug only grazed the man's neck, a geyser of blood spurting from the nicked artery. Grabbing the wound, the man opened his mouth to scream and a knife slammed into his temple. With a sigh, the guard collapsed to the ground and died. Jak reclaimed his blade and wiped it clean on the corpse's shirt.
There was a clearing in the bamboo forest, and the land started to slope toward an imposing barrier of pungi sticks and thorny vines. A click sounded from the companions, and Ryan and J.B. quickly looked at the rad counters on their lapels. The background count had increased, but not significantly.
"They live in a rad pit," Ryan muttered in disgust.
An inclined earthen ramp offered direct access through the pungi sticks and into the pit. Sounds could be heard coming from below now, laughter, a steady thumping, the murmur of voices. As quietly as possible, the companions crept along the outer perimeter of the hole until locating a vantage point in a pool of shadows cast by the setting sun.
Distant thunder rumbled, warning of an approaching storm as J.B. swept the ville below with his longeyes. About a dozen huts stood at the bottom of the blast crater, simple arrangements of tanned skin over a hinged skeleton of aged wood, similar to the yurts of the Mongol hordes. There were several work areas with oldsters busy making things with their bare hands. An old man sat on a rock carving a comb from bone, and a young woman with full breasts was using a scrap piece of rock to scrape a stretched piece of hide as a preparation for curing.
A stream trickled out of the bamboo forest, going down the sloped side of the crater and through the pungi-stick wall and forming a pool at one end of the ville. In the center was a banked pile of glowing red coals ready to cook dinner. About forty people, adults and children, were walking about in loincloths and crude sandals. Here in the safety of their home, the gray men had removed their camou.
They were covered with tattoos, but appeared to be norms.
Near the center of the ville was a pit in the ground covered with a lid of stout logs and guarded by several of the women, each armed with a long spear. As the companions watched, an arm clawed through the wooden grating and the women stabbed it back down into the pit, the tips of their spears becoming dabbed with crimson in the process.
The lid was removed and the gray men jabbed at the trapped people until one was forced to exit the prison. Instantly, he was swarmed upon and ropes tied to his arms and legs. With five or six tattooed people on each rope, the chosen prisoner was hauled to a tree and held there helpless while old women jabbed out his eyes with sharp sticks, and then cut the tendons in his legs. Even if set free, the man would never walk again.
Now his clothes were cut away with great care not to damage the skin. Naked, he was bound tight and the ropes looped over a tree branch, then he was hauled off his feet to dangle upside down. Next, a barrel was shoved underneath. Doc and Jak muttered curses. Born and raised on farms, they knew what was coming next.
Without a qualm, the prisoner's throat was slit and his blood flowed into the barrel. When the corpse was completely drained, the stomach was slit apart and the intestines slithered free to be saved in a woven basket. Evidently, all body parts were consumed.
The sun was nearing the horizon, and the rad pit was illuminated by the banked coals, giving the ville a reddish tone like a nightmare, but it was all terribly real.
Now the head was sawed off and given to an old man who peeled off the scalp as an aid to plucking out the hairs, probably to make ropes. Another oldster broke off the jaw and removed the teeth, for saws and arrowheads. Meanwhile, young woman neatly removed the skin from the corpse, and the raw carcass had a wooden pole shoved down the neck stump until it exited the anus. The limply dangling arms and legs were cut away and put into a tent filled with smoke, curing the meat to make it last.
Sprinkled with herbs, the skinless torso was placed on a spit above the coals, and old women started turning the food slowly, chatting among themselves as dinner began to cook. Sticks with rags tied to the ends caught the melting fat and were used to baste the meat in its own juices. Soon the smell reached the companions, and they fought the urge to retch.
"Cannies," Doc muttered, looking away. He had encountered man-eaters before, but this methodical processing of the aced man was demonic. It demeaned humans to no more than cattle.
"Any sign of Ann?" Ryan asked, squinting into the crimson pit.
"Not yet," J.B. answered, moving the brass scope around the camp. "Got a live round says she's in that hole, though."
"Need diversion," Jak stated forcibly. "Stampede horses, set fire bamboo?"
"We could use several diversions, my friend," Doc stated. "There are a lot more cannies than there are us."
Ryan rubbed his jaw. If they knew which tent contained the stores of black powder for the blasters, they could toss in some firebombs and rock the whole ville. The stampede wasn't a bad idea, except that the horses were as passive as an old eunuch. And most of their explosives were in the lost munitions bag. This was going to require some thought.
"Whatever we're going to do had better be soon," Krysty warned, pointing below. "They're getting the tree ready for another prisoner."
Unslinging his longblaster, Ryan handed it to Mildred, along with most of his spare ammo mags. Then he pulled out the panga and started drawing in the dirt.
"Okay," he said, "here's the plan."
Chapter Eight
Searching around, Krysty found a flat rock and slid it carefully to the very edge of the crater, then wiggled it snugly into the dirt to make sure it wouldn't move. Setting the Steyr SSG-70 on the rock, the woman placed a handkerchief on the ground nearby and laid out a neat row of the extra mags for the longblaster. Taking a look through the scope, she could see the cannies in wire-sharp detail, and practiced moving the crosshairs from one to another. Very soon now.
TAKING POSITION inside a clump of young bamboo, Mildred used a knife to gently saw through some of the jointed tubes until she had a good view of the secret ville below. Taking a tiny piece of a bandage from her med kit, the physician rubbed it in the dirt until it was no longer white, but a dull brown. Tying it to the end of a bamboo stick, Mildred eased it into the open where a breeze stirred the strip of cloth. Thrusting the other end of the stick into the ground, the physician watched the fluttering rag and tried to gauge the wind shear. She had never attempted this great a distance with her ZKR target pistol, not even back when she went for the gold medal in the Olympics. But lives were ridi
ng on her accuracy today, not just a medal.
If they wanted to live the night, there was blood to be spilled. Somehow, the physician didn't think the Olympic committee would have approved.
FORCING HIS WAY into the stands of tough bamboo, Dean got his blaster ready for a fight. If the advance party was found, Krysty and Mildred would give them cover to reach the top, then he was to give everybody cover to reach the horses. Then they would cover his own escape. It was a good plan, but something deep inside the boy, honed from surviving a hundred fights, warned that this wasn't how it was going to happen this night.
CIRCLING THE RIM of the crater, Ryan crawled on his belly until he was at the top of the ramp going down into the ville. Staying low, he continued onward until reaching the flow of carbonated water from the spring. Easing gently into the water, the man felt his clothes soak through in an instant, and a chill swept over his body. Damn stuff was cold. Sliding along the muddy creek, Ryan paused every couple of feet to listen for any reactions to his presence, then moved on.
Getting through the wall of pungi sticks was a lot easier than he had thought. The flowing water had undercut many of the sticks, making them very loose. Very gently, Ryan pulled them out of the sucking mud, placed them aside and moved forward a little. A cannie guard would have to be watching very carefully to detect his passage.
Past the defensive wall, the creek ended a few feet off the ground above a stagnant pool thick with green scum. Sliding into the filthy water, Ryan crouched low so that only his face was in the air. The banks were lined with reeds and cattail punks, fat and brown, waving gently in the breeze. Murmurs of conversation could be heard from the campsite, the thud of a heavy cleaver, a whimper of pain, low laughter.
Peering through the weeds, he saw the cannies haul somebody from the pit, but the shadows hid the face. Then the men began to laugh and ran their hands over the straggling captive, and Ryan knew it was a woman. Whether it was Ann or not, he still couldn't tell. He'd have to find out before they could start shooting.
A disturbance in the water made Ryan turn with a knife in hand. But it was just the others arriving in his wake. As silent as ghosts, Jak, J.B. and Doc eased through the muck. Each man carried his blaster just above the water level, then Doc gave a gasp as he sank out of sight, sending out ripples and waves that shook the reeds. The scholar was completely submerged, except for the hand holding his blaster aloft, a scant inch above the surface of the pond. A moment later, he emerged from the reeking pond, snorting green water from his nose and mouth, and wiping his face clean as best he could with a dripping hand.
"Okay?" Ryan asked, raising the SIG-Sauer higher to protect it from the waves.
"My weapon is still dry," Doc whispered, spitting the filth from his mouth.
If there had been time, Ryan would have made some catapults from the more sturdy stands of bamboo and propelled flaming arrows to set the whole ville on fire. But he had to settle for something more wasteful. Each of the M-16 rifles they were saving for trade had three full clips of ammo. Ryan took one clip from each to throw into the campfire. When the ball ammo cooked off, that would give them the edge needed to get Ann. Unfortunately, the ammo clips didn't skim well, and the companions would have to be close to get them into the fire. Very close.
Doc also had the military blasters with him, wrapped in several layers of plastic to keep them dry. That was their key out of the crater in case everything went to hell. Hopefully, they wouldn't have to be used. Ryan would prefer to buy the use of a ship, rather than just steal one.
Just then a fat woman in mismatched clothing waddled to the pond and threw in a bucket of wastewater. Ryan tracked her approached and departure with the bulbous end of the SIG-Sauer, two pounds of pressure on the six-pound trigger. A breath on his part and the big cannie would be blown away. Squatting, she lifted her skirts and sent a yellow stream into the scum. The men flinched, realizing that this was the latrine for the ville. No wonder it was so far away from the rest of the camp. By sheer effort of will, they didn't move or speak. When finally finished, the woman stood, smoothed out her patched skirt and waddled away.
As the obese woman went around a tent and ducked out of sight, she started to scream in an unknown language. Across the ville, the cannies dropped whatever they were doing and dived for weapons, coming up with spears, knives and more than a few flintlock handcannons.
Moving through the reeds, Ryan fired a fast three times directly into the animal-skin tent, and the fat cannie stumbled into view, blood covering her back. Wailing in agony, she fell to the ground, trying to staunch the loss of blood with her pudgy fingers. There was no hope of success.
Stepping onto dry land, J.B. burped the Uzi at the nearest group of armed cannies, sending them to hell, but he refrained from spraying the entire ville. The unknown female, possibly Ann, was somewhere loose among the deviant flesh-eaters, and he could easily ace her going for the big chill. He had to do this the hard way.
A beautiful woman carrying a spear charged at the companions, then jumped forward, throwing away her weapon. She hit the ground hard just as the boom of the Steyr rolled down from above. A sharp crack followed, and a man loading a flintlock spun like a top, a hole in his face where a nose used to exist. Krysty and Mildred were on the job.
Darting from the reeds to behind a stack of firewood, Ryan chose his targets and aced everybody who wasn't screaming in panic. The more disorganized the bastards were, the better. Just then a pounding hail of miniballs hit the cord of wood, slamming it apart and almost trapping Ryan under the falling logs. A roll of thunder shattered the night as Doc triggered the LeMat, the deafening report illuminating the battle scene in brutal clarity, and three cannies flipped sideways.
Small children were running everywhere, and a pregnant cannie shuffled for safety behind a tree. Ryan's blaster tracked their movements, but he didn't pull the trigger. They were no danger. No sense wasting ammo.
Withering cross fire filled the air, chips of bark flying off the trees, and the cooking torso jerking in a ghastly pantomime of trying to escape from the spit. Just then, a woman dressed in dirty rags staggered from behind the killing tree and headed for the inclined ramp out of the crater. Ryan bolted across the open ground to catch her in his arms. Blood was pumping freely from a terrible wound on her chest; most of one breast had been torn away by a miniball. She tried to fight off Ryan as he carried her into the weeds. A chest wound. No way could he get a tourniquet around that, and he had nothing to use as a pressure bandage.
"Sorry," he said, dropping a clip and reloading to fire into the thinning mob of cannies.
Clutching a ruined hand, one man just stood there, howling at the stars until Ryan shot him again and the noise ceased.
Several men dressed in gray charged from a tent into view, large clay pots with dangling fuses in their hands. J.B. swung the Uzi in their direction. No way he was going to let them do that smoke trick again. The Uzi spoke, and the gray men fell, the smoke bombs rolling away. Then there came a fast series of sharp bangs from above and each one burst apart, totally destroyed. J.B. nodded at the unseen women and moved on, firing single rounds to conserve ammo.
Dropping his spent brass, Jak reloaded and sent three booming messengers toward two cannies trying to sneak behind Doc. Both men fell as if hit with sledgehammers, the hollowpoint rounds tearing holes in their bellies the size of a fist. As the flintlocks hit the soil, the blasters discharged, sending the .75 miniball rounds randomly into the ville.
A gang of old women carrying axes came after them now, and J.B. used the rest of the clip to blow them away. The survivors ran for the ramp to reach the safety of the bamboo forest. But as they reached the top, Krysty and Mildred mowed them down in ruthless efficiency.
A spear sailed by overhead, forcing Ryan to duck. Then a trembling hand touched him, and Ryan briefly glanced at the dying woman. Her mouth filled with blood, she burbled something impossible to hear and went still. Then Doc fired again, and in the flash Ryan got a
good look at her face. She was beautiful and badly scarred, but this woman was much too old, an adult, deeply tanned with pirate-style earrings.
"She's still in the pit!" Ryan shouted through cupped hands.
That was all the others needed. J.B. stood and cut loose with the Uzi, mowing down the cannies with a deadly storm of the copper-jacketed 9 mm rounds. Darting out of the shadows, Jak flipped both of the 30-round mags into the campfire and dived for cover. In less than a heartbeat, the ammo started cooking off, the irregular series of detonations throwing hot coals and deformed lead everywhere. Clay pots shattered, a man fell, clutching his ankle, two more fell over lifeless, a tent hit with coals burst into flames and another cannie insanely rushed the campfire and struck at the exploding magazines with a war club. That close, he caught all of the next rounds and was torn apart. The corpse fell forward into the campfire, and the reek of burning hair soon mingled with the wretched aroma of roasting human flesh from the torso on the spit.
In raw terror, the last few cannie warriors broke ranks and dashed for a tent set off by itself in the ville. Going inside, a grisly cannie came back out with a flintlock rifle and a pouch of ammo. Jak shifted his position to get closer. That longblaster was trouble. As the warrior started to load the weapon, Jak aimed carefully and shot him with the Magnum pistol. His face gone, the hideous corpse fell backward into the tent, and the other men started firing their weapons from within the flimsy structure.
Whistling sharply, Ryan gestured at the tent, and J.B. rolled their only gren through the opening. The companions took cover and the whole crater shook with the strident blast, a roiling fireball spreading out to engulf a dozen other tents. In moments, the whole ville was in flames.
Suddenly, a young boy charged out of a burning hut, brandishing a bone dagger. Most of his body was covered with burn marks, the skin cracked and covered with large blisters. Shouting more in pain than anger, the child charged straight at Ryan and he aced the boy with one careful shot to the heart. Death was instantaneous.
